taste

Crust by Delumine

Art...something created by humans that has aesthetic and expressive/communicating properties. Aesthetic defines what is pleasing; what is considered of beauty or art...or taste. Aesthetic is determined by the culture, and so is every idea encompassed by art and beauty. It is all opinion.

Because art is continuously being defined, it can only be art when considered to have identifiable aesthetics. Art is a societal distinction of taste. It is a signifier of development because it requires space to examine and principles to apply. 

Then what is art when it is not art? What is beautiful when it can not be considered? Do we determine what pleases our senses? Familiarity? Novelty?

Beauty is when a specific taste is pleasing.

I find beauty in the bricks and the boards and paint. In the stains, the rust, the weathering and mold. Sprayed on fuse boxes and train cars. Tacked to light posts and duplex mail boxes. Buried in dumpsters, submerged at the bottom of a dam of plastic bags and straws in a reservoir. Beauty is in the microplastics that are slowly integrating their way into all of our ecosystem. Cycles of destruction and consumption inspire creation. And realizing how carelessly we dictate the sacred nature of our own life has become a cycle of appreciation for me. It shows me who we are. We are as disgusting as we are beautiful.

How can we recognize what is pleasing? Do we appreciate what is pleasing? What controls our ability to appreciate pleasure? Our environment?

We can only be considered beautiful when our senses decide to appreciate us.

Beauty is in the details. Time spent in a state of focus draws us into critical analysis. Beauty is in the wrinkles along the sides of the eyes when a face smiles. It's in the twists of the spine as the body copes with generating. It's along the seem of an extremely pregnant belly. It's in the knees of a bowlegged stride. It's in the opalized eyes of a blind mouse. It's in the eyeball itself. The cornea, pupil...iris. It's in the ear. It's how we touch. How we feel. What makes us feel, or aware that we do. So aware we write words. How else could we develop any taste without the abstraction of language?

Why do I appreciate? What do I find in that momentary enjoyment? Sometimes it's hurt. I appreciate my own hurt because it helps me understand. I can influence my vibrations. I can initiate higher frequency of thought and mind. I can appreciate my own hate as destruction and orient myself toward creation and growth. Good taste is refined by those that have found and/or made space to appreciate their own deconstruction.